Many things scare me...
Note: I did not write this pasta, I am just posting it here. My name is Leo, I’m 19, and I’ve always been afraid. I was born prematurely, and I think that may be why I’m not quite… okay. I mean, I still function in society, but I have a lot of fears. Some are straightforward (fear of heights, fear of the dark), and some are abstract (fear of pain, fear of death), and some are just, well, odd (fear of bathrooms, fear of coffee). But I remember all of them being triggered by something, including my fear of forests. I was 10, and I had been adopted by a nice couple when I was nine. My dad’s father just had his 60th birthday, and he loved the outdoors. We decided to rent a house close to a forest (I hadn’t ever been to a forest), and drive to the forest to hike and fish. The first 2 days were pretty much just lazy days. We arrived and collapsed since it was a long drive, and the second day we woke up at 10, had lunch, and just talked about what we were going to do the next day. The house had several other people in it, and we talked with them about the woods. They shared nice places to go, and some stories. It was boring for a 10 year old me, though. My adopted grandfather told me exciting stories about how he caught a shark in the ocean once, and how he rode a deer through the woods another time. It was all made up, looking back, but I believed it. I fell asleep excited for the next day. We woke up at 8, a reasonable time, and started packing for a hike at 9. We started driving into the woods, and we stopped for some wildlife we saw. We parked in a place with other cars. There were a lot of the same make and model of car. It was weird. There were only paths with no signs of where they went at all, but the people staying at the house told us this was where they usually went. We picked a path and started walking, we could always go back the way we came. There was so many animals out then, we saw rabbits everywhere. There was deer running through the forest and frolicking in groups of 4 or more. Birds chirped louder than car alarms. It was like nature had gone crazy. We arrived at a “lake”. I say that because it was a huge ditch filled with water. It was a dug out rectangle that was filled with unmoving water. You could see straight to the bottom. We decided to take a break and photograph some trees and the lake, and so I went with my grandpa up to a group of trees. We sat and drank some water and ate some snacks. He was talking about how this was like no forest he’d ever seen, and he was in wonder of what we saw. I started playing with some of the trees, bending branches and collecting leafs. I tripped and fell face first into a tree, and it crumbled. Not all of it, it just crumbled where I had hit my head. It was like styrofoam, it didn’t hurt. There was nothing inside the tree, just a completely hollow tree. I ran back to my parents and my grandpa, and they had asked where I had gone. I pointed to where I had gone and told them about the crumbling tree. My parents looked confused and my grandpa looked scared. He told us to not go over there again. I asked him if I had done something wrong, and he just told us to keep walking. We didn’t question him, it was his birthday gift. We decided to go back to the path crossroads and pick another path. We picked a path that hand lots of footprints this time. This path actually had people walking on it. I waved, but they didn’t wave back. They avoided us. We got to a huge rock on a slope off the side. There were a lot of people staring at something off in the distance. Suddenly, my grandpa pulled me off the path, and just started running through the forest with me. My grandpa didn’t look that healthy, and running was straining him. My parents chased after us. After we couldn’t see the path anymore, my grandpa stopped. I looked down and there were holes everywhere. Just 3″ holes in the dirt. They were perfect circles. My grandpa looked up for a very long time. There was silence. No wildlife, no wind and no people. My grandpa suddenly punched a tree, and it crumbled. He screamed and collapsed. My parents looked shocked. They carried him back to the path, and then to the car without saying anything. I looked back at the people. They were staring at the rock, now. I walked back to my parents, and we drove to the hospital. My grandpa just collapsed from exhaustion, and the doctors said he would be okay as long as he doesn’t do strenuous activity. We packed our things and went back to the city. I just slept for the next few days, I felt so tired. I never asked my parents about it. My grandpa disappeared a year later, and we didn’t see him for 4 years. He just showed up one day, in his own house. He called us about his birthday, and asked why we didn’t show up at the house he rented. He had rented the same house we had rented years ago. I don’t know what happened in that forest, and I really am too scared to go back. Something was unsettling about the activity of the people and the wildlife. Category:BCP Category:Pastas